Latest student protest ends peacefully

Students block Sherbrooke Street in downtown Montreal, across from McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management.

The latest student protest against tuition fee hikes ended without incident Tuesday, when police ordered students to end a sit-in on Sherbrooke Street near McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management in Montreal.

About 2,000 students and their supporters marched from Victoria Square to the intersection of Sherbrooke and McTavish streets, not far from Quebec Premier Jean Charest's Montreal office.

The protest was mostly peaceful, although there was a slight altercation between students and police when a firecracker was set off near a group of police officers.

Police pulled out their batons and had pepper spray at hand, as students chanted, in French, "We are staying peaceful!"

Office workers observe student protesters from a nearby building.

Mounted police move in

Late in the afternoon, police ordered students to disperse, informing them the demonstration was an illegal gathering and that anyone who refused to leave could face arrest.

A line of police officers on bicycles and on horseback formed a wedge and slowly moved into on the crowd, eventually forcing students back onto the sidewalks on either side of Sherbrooke Street.

Shortly afterwards, only a few stragglers remained.

Some CEGEP teachers and others joined students to show their support for their movement to end tuition fee hikes.

"Everyone in society should be able to go to university if they have the will and the capacity to," said CEGEP Marie-Victorin professor Charles Lemieux.